Artillery

[The Wrathchild]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The problem isn't when the PCs call for fire; the rules in High-Tech are excellent for that. The problem is when they are the firing unit. For example what if the PCs are the crew of a naval vessel providing shore bombardment (or an orbital platform providing orbital bombardment)?

• What skills do they need?
• Who makes the Artillery roll?
• Is it fun to have all the PCs efforts compressed into a single mass skill?
• Do the gunners actually need both Gunner and Artillery if they need to use both direct and indirect fire with the same weapon system?
• Do the loaders get to make ST-based rolls for direct fire or just indirect fire?

Artillery skill:

This is the ability to use a heavy
weapon, such as a trebuchet or a howitzer,
for indirect fire – that is, to put
fire onto a target area via a high ballistic
arc or similar path.

No expert at all here, but if eg. the description in Wikipedia is even relatively correct, it seems to me that it is the person(s) who performs the role that the FDC does - the actual calculations that sets up the shot - that rolls the Artillery roll.

The loader-firer crew seems to me to have the Professional: Gun Crewskill (or something to that effect) which lets them perform the tasks ordered by the FDC and realyed to/through the crew leader. This would probably only come into effect if ou wanted to press the stats of the weapon, most likely the firing rate.

(Wasn't there a movie once not too long ago, where the plot hinged on faultily communicated firing instructions from the FDC to the crew? No ... it was a JAG episode, I believe.)

I see no problem in "activating" the crew, though, making rolls to keep/increase fire rates and performing correctly - I have just youtubed a little and it makes it very clear that you can **** up as crew. Badly, too (one chinese video showed a soldier standing behind the breech of small gun, then it fired before he was away. He was knocked right out of the frame. Ouch. Internal injuries there for sure.).

And actually, it seems that the FDC itself (can) have several performers, too, each dealing with different parts of FO information.

It should be perfectly feasible to increase the resolution here.